I am writing today to request that parental consent to remain an integral part of Virginia special education regulations. In the case of my son, Alex, a 15 yo w/autism in the SECEP program in Virginia Beach, at his annual IEP meeting in October 2007, I disagreed with the new IEP because it was not appropriate for my son. Because parental consent regulation, the IEP team continued to search to reach an agreement. In March 2008, we came to agreement that Alex had actually progressed enough to be removed from the SECEP program back to Virginia Beach Special Education into a less restricted environment. Without parental consent, the IEP team would not have come to this conclusion.